Traffic-associated fatigue damage is one of the major distresses in which flexible pavements fail. This type of distress is the result of many thousands--or even millions of wheel loads passing over a pavement. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's pre-publication draft of NCHRP Research Report 982: Relationships Between the Fatigue Properties of Asphalt Binders and the Fatigue Performance of Asphalt Mixtures details these relationships and makes several conclusions and recommendations.

Fatigue cracking is one of the primary modes of failure in asphalt pavements. Cracking typically occurs within the asphalt binder phase of asphalt mixtures. Thus, asphalt binder fatigue resistance is critical in determining overall pavement fatigue performance. One procedure commonly used to characterize asphalt binder fatigue resistance is the time sweep test, which consists of repeated torsional loading of a cylindrical specimen in the Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR). Generally, apparent changes in material properties with respect to number of cycles of loading are used to define fatigue failure of the asphalt binder. Results of this test have been shown to correlate well with asphalt mixture fatigue performance. However, the mechanisms responsible for changes in material properties during fatigue testing in the DSR were previously not well understood. Results in this study demonstrate that fracture can account for changes in loading resistance of asphalt binders during time sweep testing. Under cyclic torsional loading of cylindrical specimens, macro fracture is shown to manifest in the form of edge fracture. Edge fracture is a circumferential crack starting at the periphery of a cylindrical sample that propagates inward as loading is applied, reducing the effective sample size. Digital visualization of the fractured specimens allowed for determination of the fractured and intact sample area. Predictions of fracture propagation based on measurements of loading resistance and fracture mechanics concepts agreed favorably with actual measurements based on visualization. Furthermore, the fracture morphology and progression of crack growth of asphalt binders matched those observed for other materials under similar loading conditions. Based on these results, fatigue damage characterization of asphalt binders can be improved by incorporating fracture mechanics into an analysis framework for DSR fatigue test results. An analysis framework based on fracture principles is presented. The proposed model allows predicting fatigue life at any loading amplitude using the results of a single fatigue test. Additionally, it is demonstrated that time-temperature superposition is applicable to fatigue crack propagation of asphalt binders, allowing for efficient prediction of fatigue performance at multiple temperatures. The model is validated using a comparison between asphalt mixture and binder fatigue test results.

A primary objective for the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) A-003A contract was to extend and verify the results obtained by other SHRP contractors on the performance-related characteristics of asphalt binders in paving mixes. This report specifically addresses validation of the following: 1) binder properties proposed by the A-002A contractor to predict asphalt-aggregate mix performance in terms of fatigue, permanent deformation, and thermal cracking; and 2) conditioning procedures that produce binder properties representative of those in a pavement immediately after construction and after several years of service. While water sensitivity requirements are not included in the binder specification, validation efforts in the water-sensitivity area are also described. Materials used in the investigation included 8 to 16 asphalt binders and 2 to 4 aggregates obtained from the SHRP Materials Reference Library.

One of the main concerns with the application of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in the asphalt concrete pavement is fatigue cracking due to the stiffness increase with the addition of aged and stiff RAP binder. The purpose of this study is to evaluate fatigue performance of asphalt binder and mixtures with different RAP percentages (0, 15, 25, 35 and 40 %). Among these, 35 and 40 % RAP mixes are considered as high RAP content. This study describes the results of laboratory fatigue response of asphalt mixtures and extracted binders containing RAP to define the effect of RAP on the fatigue performance. To achieve this objective, mixes and binders were tested using the beam fatigue test and the time-sweep test, respectively. Test results were analyzed using two different fatigue approaches, reduction in stiffness and dissipated energy criteria. Results showed that a higher initial stiffness and initial dissipated energy initiate the fatigue failure faster. Since both binders and mixes show an increase in the stiffness and energy consumed per loading cycle with the addition of RAP, resulting mixes containing higher RAP have a very short fatigue life. Also, the fatigue endurance limit decreases drastically with the addition of RAP in the mix. The results comparing two different RAP sources showed that the RAP source has more prominent effect on the mix fatigue performance than the binder fatigue performance. Finally, the traditional fatigue life prediction model is modified to incorporate the effect of RAP in the fatigue equation. The modified regression model predicted reasonable fatigue life of the mixture with a coefficient of determination (R2) close to 1. The measured and predicted fatigue life results were found close to each other for both mix and binder containing RAP.